Why OOXML is Even Worse than It Seems

I've been watching the slow motion OOXML train wreck from afar for a while now. It appears that ISO is highly likely to fast track OOXML, which will be a huge disaster for ISO. From looking at first hand accounts and second level analysis, it looks like Microsoft has successfully railroaded the OOXML spec through ISO with no regard to technical or standards issues. Thus, if ISO approves this, the ISO imprimatur is effectively worthless; and that's a shame, since we need standards. The damage done to ISO's credibility, and the impact of its loss, is actually worse than the damage done by the bad OOXML standard.

Note: The opinions expressed in this post, as with all others, are purely mine and do not represent my employer's views. Thought I should mention it again.

new OpenSocialFoundation(); new APIs();

It's been a busy few days. The OpenSocial Foundation sprang into being on Tuesday, with MySpace, Yahoo!, Google, and Hi5 as initial members; on the same day, Microsoft announced contact portability for its Windows Live Contacts service, partnering with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged, and LinkedIn to access and re-use contact data. (We announced the Google Data Contacts API on March 5.) Seems like there's a trend here!

On a somewhat related note, we're moving forward on the OpenSocial RESTful API.

Update 3/31: Hi5 too!